Seattle’s Got The Transformational Moves (Like Jagger?*)

2012 March 21

by dan bertolet

One clue that something’s up in Seattle is the construction cranes, whose legions have reinvaded the City during the past year or so. But the cranes only hint at the myriad transformational projects in the works that, all told, present an extraordinary opportunity to transform Seattle into a resilient city equipped to thrive in a challenging future.

Check it out:

< Rendering of the west half of the North Lot Development - click to enlarge >

The North Lot development on the surface parking lot adjacent to CenturyLink Field will bring 700 units of new housing to the Pioneer Square neighborhood, which has suffered from a severe lack of market-rate housing for decades. The second phase of the project will add 420,000 square feet of office. And all of those new homes and jobs will be within a stone’s throw of King Street station, the Pacific Northwest’s most important transit hub.

< Rendering of the potential full buildout of Yesler Terrace >

Yesler Terrace, located on 30 acres on the southeast edge of downtown, will eventually transform about 600 units of aging low-income housing to as many as 5,000 low-income and market-rate units, along with significant commercial and office space (depending on the future market). With excellent access to transit and jobs, Yesler Terrace has the potential to become one of North America’s finest examples of an equitable, sustainable urban neighborhood.

< Model of NBBJ's early design concept for Amazon's new property in the Denny Triangle >

Then there’s the latest Amazon deal, involving plans for a trio of one-million-square-foot office towers in the Denny Triangle. Based on a typical office cube size, that’s nearly 9,000 new jobs. Some of those jobs may be sucked away from existing office space elsewhere, but any way you look at it, it’s a massive investment in Seattle’s future as a regional employment center. And it’s also an investment in the right place—a walkable, transit-rich urban center, as opposed to the car-dependent burbs where Microsoft set up shop in their early years.

Furthermore, all those new jobs will draw more people to Seattle, and most of those people will want nearby places to live, fueling a virtuous cycle of densification. Seemingly prescient, right across from the future Amazon site on 6th Ave, construction is well underway on a 654-unit dual-tower apartment.

< Rendering of the proposed Insignia condo project in Belltown >

UPDATE: The SeattlePI is reporting a rumor that the Insignia 643-unit, 41-story, dual-tower condo project in Belltown (about two blocks south of the new Amazon property) will start construction as early as this May, making it the City’s first large-scale condo project to break ground since the housing bubble burst.

< Rendering of future University of Washington South Lake Union medical research campus - click to enlarge >

Near the southern end of South Lake Union, construction is currently underway to convert a section of Mercer Street into a two-way boulevard. The $190 million project will create a pedestrian and bike friendly “complete street” that will enhance urban livability and help reconnect the neighborhood to Lake Union.

Speaking of which, Seattle Center, now 50 years old, is in line for a serious makeover as envisioned in the recently completed $570 million, 20-year Master Plan. The new Chihuly Exhibit is currently under construction, and the Urban Intervention design competition is soliciting ideas for how to completely transform the 9-acre heart of the Center where Memorial Stadium now stands.

And speaking of sports arenas, Seattle has a deal for another one in the works, to be located just south of the two existing stadiums in South Downtown. According to the proposal, the project will be primarily funded through private investment—another example of the all-around bullish market for Seattle.

< Rendering of the James Corner Field Operations vision for Seattle's Central Waterfront >

A short walk from the stadium district brings you to the Central Waterfront, which will get a new lease on life after the Alaskan Way viaduct comes down in 2016 and is currently the focus of a high-profile design effort led by New York City’s James Corner Field Operations. In addition, WSDOT is planning a $210 million renovation of the Seattle Multimodal Terminal at Colman Dock, located near the south end of the waterfront. CORRECTION: the Coleman Dock image originally shown below is out of date and has been replaced with the current plan.

The transformational potential of the Central Waterfront cannot be overstated, though there will be challenges: funding, of course, but also, in my view, the prevalent aversion to allowing redevelopment that would help fill in and activate that very wide linear space.

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In the realm of transportation, two major freeway projects—the deep-bore tunnel and the SR-520 Bridge—will probably suck up upwards of $10 billion of public investment when all is said and done. Transformational, no doubt, though given likely future trends the wisdom of further transformation toward reliance on travel by car is questionable, to say the least. (That said, the new SR-520 bridge will improve transit service, and the newly enacted tolling is a major, paradigm-shifting, positive step for the region.)

As for transportation projects that can be expected to transform Seattle away from car dependence, Sound Transit light rail tops the list. Right now there are three tunnel-boring machines chugging away on the University Link extension that will connect Westlake, Capitol Hill and the University District. The sites around Capitol Hill Station that will become available for redevelopment after station construction is finished represent one of the City’s best opportunities for transit-oriented development.

North Link will bring three more light rail stations to Seattle by 2020. And the $18 billion expansion funded by ST2 will extend Seattle’s light rail connectivity to numerous satellite cities to the north, east and south.

Seattle has also just formally given the green light to a new $132 million streetcar line running from Pioneer Square to Capitol Hill light rail station via Yesler Terrace and First Hill. On Broadway the reconstructed street will include a separated two-way cycle track. The streetcar vehicles will be built in Seattle and feature regenerative braking.

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Okay, so those are the big ones, but there are many more worthy of honorable mentions, a few a which are noted below:

< Construction of new student housing at the University of Washington >

The University of Washington has been on a student housing binge, with plans to add 3,000 new student beds over several development phases valued at close to half a billion dollars.

The City will soon be home to two new mid-rise office buildings that are targeting the Living Building Challenge: first, the Bullitt Center in the Central District, and second, the new Brooks Sports HQ in Fremont. Though these are isolated buildings, they are trailblazers that will help further establish Seattle as a center for green innovation.

Construction continues on the Seattle Housing Authority’s Rainier Vista, bringing more new low-income and market-rate housing in close proximity to the Columbia City light rail station.

King County Metro’s Rapid Ride bus rapid transit will begin serving West Seattle and Ballard in Fall 2012 and the north Aurora Ave corridor in 2013.

And lastly, one with powerful, long-term transformational potential for Seattle and the greater region: The Puget Sound Regional Council’s Growing Transit Communities Partnership, the region’s first and only comprehensive program for planning around our regional high-capacity transit investments. As the region goes, so goes the city.

(Etc, etc, let me know what I missed.)

In sum, all that action and investment is not too shabby for a single city in a country still suffering from economic doldrums. The fact is, Seattle’s prospects are great. As the above discussion makes clear, Seattle’s exceptional combination of intellectual, economic and natural capital is propelling the City into a dynamic future. And now’s the time to keep pushing, keep innovating, keep dreaming, so all that dynamism can be channeled to create a truly sustainable city for the 21st Century.

“The Allen Institute for Brain Science announced today that, given its achievements to date, Paul G. Allen has committed an additional $300 million to the Institute to significantly expand its scientific programs.”

The pedestrian bridge will get rebuilt (as something nicer) as part of the waterfront work, and yes, Metro continues to look at service up Madison. Changes were part of the original fall 2012 service change proposal (since revised) and I am sure they will come up again, particularly since Madison is one of the City’s priority transit corridors (or whatever terminology they’re using).

The ferry ped walkway puts you on marion basically midway between two DSTT stops, with the closest entrance to DSTT seven blocks east (the pit on 3rd between cherry and james), or north seven blocks (wamu tower at 3rd and Seneca).
It’d be a long tunnel, and suburban ferry riders would worry about crime.

Ped ferry riders have it a bit easier (except for the ferry drivers), with a straight walk to the southern Pioneer Square entrance up Yesler.

Nate, I expect the answer will be buses. Not sure if the cost of a spur tunnel is worth it at this time. Already WSDOT is having trouble funding the ferries which actually enable increased sprawl on the peninsula. They have to get SR-99 and 520 and work with Sound Transit on the rail across 90, not to mention work needed on 5.

I’d like to believe Seattlers aren’t idiots, but evidence that average Seattlers are clueless is abundant. Case in point: Bertolet & company proposal for redeveloping Portland’s Memorial Stadium was dead last Worst of the 100 submitted designs. It’s all in how this shit is sold to the public. Pretend shit smells good and idiots will believe it. “Boy Howdy, the bored tunnel shore will be nifty, unless it collapses and takes a few towers and anyone inside down with it, or of course when tens of thousands more cars are redirected from the commercial corridor of Elliott up/down the steep Mercer Place hill and through high-density Queen Anne and onto the fucking Mercer Mess made fucking much messier. You’re all fucking idiots.

Excellent! I really like the looks of just about all of those buildings (I’m not too fond of the new buildings going up by the UW). They look great compared to the bland six story buildings that seem to dominate some areas (especially South Lake Union). Speaking of which, a rezone will be really nice. Those six store blogs will remain, but at least there will be some interesting tall buildings to keep them company.

I hope that when all is said and done, the city will be a lot more bike-friendly than it is now. I recently moved here from the East Coast, and I am so disappointed with the lack of safe cycling in the metro area. I thought that of all cities, Seattle would be at the cutting edge of safe and innovative cycle facilities. Instead, all I have seen so far on the streets are bike lanes that are far too narrow, provide no buffer from traffic on the avenues, and are often confusing. Where are the cycle tracks and bike boxes?

For all of the hype around the Cascade Bicycle Club being the largest bike club in the country, I see relatively few bike commuters compared to, say, DC and NYC. Both of those cities have learned a valuable lesson about the relationship between providing a safe cycling infrastructure and the numbers of cyclists: if you build it, they will come.

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